June 27 Thursday – Livy wrote to H.H. Rogers: “I have been quite distressed today by the paper that was served on Mr. Clemens and I feel that in some way these Webster & Co. matters must be arranged.” She confided that Sam did not know she was writing him [MTP].
June 26 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm, Sam was served with a subpoena brought by Thomas Russell & Son, printers and bookbinders, a creditor of Webster & Co. This was published on June 4 in the NY Times (see entry); the debt was $5,046. This was the subject of Sam’s PS finish for his letter to Rogers he began June 25:
June 25 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to George Washington Cable, who had written (not extant) praising the JA installment in Harper’s Monthly.
You make me feel ever so proud & pleased. I wrote the story from love, & one particularly likes to have one’s pets praised.
June 24 Monday – The Elmira Advertiser p.5 ran a short interview conducted on June 23 about a famous murder case in Brooklyn: “The Henry Murder: Mark Twain Theorizes on the Bloody Hand Prints Found.” Sam cites the study and book (Finger Prints 1892) of Sir Francis Galton, who introduced the use of fingerprints as a way of identification. Sam had studied Galton’s book and claimed it even changed his manuscript during the writing of PW [Scharnhorst, Interviews 148-50; Gribben 251].
June 22 Saturday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote two letters to H.H. Rogers. In the first, an obvious response to one of Rogers, not extant.
I have made some notes, which I enclose. I wish I could come down and talk with you and Colby and the Harpers, but I can’t. I shan’t be able to put my clothes on till — I don’t know when. Carbuncles are extravagantly slow.
My main objection is a the absence of a time-limit.
June 19 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to John Horne of Glasgow, Scotland.
I find it thoroughly entertaining. Moreover, I thank you very much for the pleasant attention of giving me the front seat.
I once made a valuable collection of autographs myself — without knowing I was doing it.
June 18 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to Frank Hall Scott, president of the Century Publishing Co.
I am at last able to take my attention from my pains & discomforts for a moment & do some thinking, preparatory to answering your two long-neglected letters [not extant].
I have a thought; & as a result I am convinced that the magazine articles are impracticable. Let us give up the idea.
June 17 Monday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to James B. Pond, having received a copy of the circular. He felt it was a good circular, “very good indeed.” He had questions about wanting to do a second reading in St. Paul and Minneapolis. He asked Pond to send a copy of the circular to R.S. Smythe, Melbourne, “& tell him we don’t go to Frisco because nobody there in mid-summer” [MTP].
June 15 Saturday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
Since writing a P.S. to Miss Harrison a minute ago, your note has come and I am very glad you are back. Also, this mail has just brought a notification from Pond that he has got my first reading postponed a week; therefore we shan’t have to leave for Cleveland till Monday July 15. This ought to give me a chance to run down and see you and the Harpers a moment, about the 10th or 12th, or along there.
June 13 Thursday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to John D. Adams of Harper & Brothers The proof he’d received of “Mental Telegraphy Again,” which would run in the Sept. issue, contained no errors. Because he could not read segments of JA before they appeared in Harper’s Monthly, Sam supposed that the chapters XII and XV, which he thought would appear in the August or September issues, might be read in Australia in mid-Sept.